Student Health Resources

Health Insurance

Having insurance and a local primary care provider (physician, Physician Assistant, or Nurse Practitioner) makes it easier to succeed in school. Data about college student success support this statement.

You can find a Single-Streamlined Application on Covered California. Some people qualify to apply outside the enrollment period. Qualifying events include life changes such as getting divorced or married; having a baby or adopting; or losing coverage because you turned 26, left your job, or your job benefits were reduced. For more information about whether you can apply for health insurance outside of the Open Enrollment Period, see the resources listed.

STD/STI

We provide comprehensive screening, testing and treatment services for sexually transmitted diseases and infections. Additionally, We can assist students with barriers to care by facilitating applications to various assistance programs. Learn more about testing:

• STD Testing www.testing.com/std-testing
• At Home STD Test www.testing.com/std-testing/at-home-std-test

General Health Resources

The resources listed below are not meant to replace a visit with a health provider, but to provide additional information that you may find helpful.

Finding and maintaining health and life balance is challenging. You have the power to make choices that can either enhance or detract from your general well-being. We are here to help you make the best decisions concerning your physical, social and mental health.

Visiting the following links can provide the tools that enable you to make the best health choices, enhancing your academic, social and personal goals.

Diet

• Eating Right For Sports and Performance: the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics provides nutritional information for athletes and those who strive to become athletes.
• Vegetarian: the Mayo Clinic provides nutritional information to keep vegetarians healthy.
• Healthy Eating Style: The USDA's Choose My Plate program provides information and recipes for students wanting to improve their way of living.
• Keto
• Mediterranean

Lifestyle

• CDC Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides public health strategies and programs that improve dietary quality, support healthy child development, and reduce chronic disease
• Go Ask Alice: Columbia University health care professionals answer questions about relationships, sexuality, sexual health, emotional health, fitness and nutrition, drugs and general health.

Mindfulness and Meditation

• Mindfulness Awareness Research Center: UCLA Health offers resources to reduce and alleviate stress through improving emotion regulation

Effects of Alcohol on the Body

Click on each section to learn the effects of alcohol on that part of the body. Bakersfield College's drug and alcohol policy can be found in Section 4F7D of the Kern Community College District Board Policy Manual and the Bakersfield College Standards of Student Conduct.

Bones

Alcohol interferes with the body's ability to absorb calcium, resulting in weak, soft, brittle and thinner bones (osteoporosis).

Brain

Alcohol acts as a sedative on the Central Nervous System, depressing the nerve cells in the brain, dulling, altering and damaging their ability to respond. Large doses cause sleep, anesthesia, respiratory failure, coma and death.

Long term drinking may result in permanent brain damage, serious mental disorders and addiction to alcohol.

Steady drinking over many years leads to permanent changes in the brain. One of the permanent effects of alcohol on the brain is to reduce the amount of brain tissue and to increase the size of the ventricles instead. Another way in which alcoholic drinks affect the brain is through depriving it of food substances such as vitamins. This is because heavy drinkers often neglect their diet, which can lead to vitamin deficiencies. Thiamine, one of the 'B' vitamins is most commonly missing from the diet and can lead to serious mental disturbance.

Impaired visual ability, Altered sense of time and space, Impaired fine motor skills, Loss of pain perception, Unclear hearing, Slows reactions, Dulled smell and taste, Impaired sexual performance.

Ears

Alcohol diminishes the ability to distinguish between sounds and perceive their direction.

Eyes

Alcohol can cause distorted vision and ability to adjust to lights. Pinpoint pupils and red eyes are common.

Heart

Alcohol can affect the heart by the vitamin deficiencies caused by a neglected diet. The pumping action of the heart is weakened and heart failure can result from this.

Intestines

Alcohol causes irritation of the lining of the intestinal tract and colon. Chronic drinking may result in inflammation, ulcers and cancer of the intestines and colon. Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, sweating and loss of appetite are common. Alcohol also impairs small intestine's ability to process nutrients and vitamins.

Liver

Some of the most serious effects on the body of drinking alcoholic drinks are caused by damage done to the liver by alcohol. If alcohol is frequently in the blood in large amounts, it causes the liver cells to die and prevents the liver from working efficiently. This disease is called Cirrhosis. In the case of a generally healthy person, if alcohol is taken infrequently or only in moderate amounts, any damaged liver tissue has time to repair itself.

Chronic heavy drinking may cause alcoholic hepatitis (inflammation and destruction of the liver cells) and then cirrhoses (irreversible lesions, scarring and destruction of liver cells). Impairs the liver's ability to remove yellow pigment and skin appears yellow (Jaundice). Liver damage causes fluid to build in extremities (Edema). Decreases production of blood-clotting factors; may cause uncontrolled bleeding. Liver accumulates fat which can cause liver failure, coma and death.

Lungs

High amounts of alcohol may cause breathing to stop (alcohol poisoning), then death. Alcohol also lowers resistance to infection (pneumonia) from aspiration of food or fluids.

Mouth

Alcohol can cause slurred speech, dull taste and smell, and reduce the desire to eat.

Muscles

Alcohol causes muscles to become weaker and atrophy. Pain, spasms and tenderness are common symptoms.

Pancreas

The pancreas is a long, bumpy, soft, grayish-pink gland, most of which is located just behind the stomach. Alcohol presents significant risk of pancreatitis, a painful chronic inflammation of the pancreas.

Pregnancy

Drinking during pregnancy significantly increases the chance of delivering a baby with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, small head, possible brain damage, abnormal facial features, poor muscle tone, speech and sleep disorders and retarded growth and development.

Reproductive Organs

Your sex life can be harmed by drinking alcoholic drinks. Alcohol depresses nerve impulses. In men, it can depress those which cause erections. In women, heavy drinking during pregnancy can harm the fetus. The baby, when it is born, may be very small and could have reduced intelligence and facial deformities. This condition is called Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and babies born to mothers with an alcohol problem are at a high risk of suffering from this.

Sexual functioning can be impaired and deteriorate, resulting in impotence and infertility, sometimes irreversible. Females also have high risk of developing breast cancer.

Skin

Alcohol causes small blood vessels in the skin to widen, allowing more blood to flow close to the skin's surface. This produces a flushed skin color and a feeling of warmth.

Stomach

Irritation of stomach lining, the peptic ulcers, inflammation, bleeding lesions and cancer.

Just one occasion when you drink heavily can irritate the stomach and cause sickness and pain. The steady drinking of alcohol can lead to the regular occurrence of these symptoms.

Throat

Alcohol can cause irritation and damage of lining of esophagus and may induce severe vomiting, hemorrhaging (esophageal varices), pain and difficulty swallowing. cancer.

Weight

Alcohol contains sugar and other carbohydrates and is a form of energy. Heavy drinking can cause a serious weight gain due to alcohol's high carbohydrate content.

Contact the Student Health and Wellness Center

If you have questions, comments, concerns, or wish to make an appointment, please contact us.

• Email: BCStudentHealth@bakersfieldcollege.edu
• Phone: (661) 395-4336
• Admnistrative Services (AS) 102